For years my Xbox buddies were nagging on at me to get Left 4 Dead. I did a bit of research here and there only to find that it was a survival horror game from the Gods of PC gaming Valve. Eventually I got round to buying it for PC (much to my friends displeasure) purely for the opportunities to try out some community made content alongside the geniuses at Valve.
I was expecting a slow paced puzzle type survival horror as that’s what Valve normally work with, with Half-Life, a game that many thousands of people now recognise Valve by. I jumped into a single player game and put the difficulty on medium only to find within 30 seconds of booting the level up I was being bombarded by hundreds of zombies at lightning speed. It plays much like a run and gun shooter of the 90’s (Think Duke Nukem with Zombies).
Your part of a small group of survivors (4 in all) who are battling the infected to escape to safety. None have any special abilities it’s just down to preference who you play as. I chose Zoey the only female due to Francis and Bill looking like hillbillies and Louis looking like my friends dad. You have 2 weapons, a primary which is either a SMG, assault rifle, sniper or a choice of 2 shotguns and then a secondary which is a pistol with infinite ammo. You can duel wield pistols which I highly advise as singularly it is a pile of shit, my only criticism with duel wielding is that as soon as you get the second pistol you have no need for any other weapon. The power is as much as the SMG per bullet and the ammo never dries up making you near enough untouchable against the standard infected. Once you meet the specials though you’re going to need your primary.
The regular infected only take a couple of bullets to die but the varying forms of specials each require tactics and the right equipment to kill. Boomers are extremely weak but explode sending out bile that attracts the standard horde to you making life difficult. Smokers grab you with their tongue and leave you vulnerable to attack from other mobs and choking. Hunters are fast and can climb walls; they pin you down and rip you apart if your team isn’t there to help. All of these are dispatched of relatively easily but then you get the big boys. Tanks are the Hulk in zombie form, they charge and smash through anything and take a brutal beating to kill, they deal high damage but are vulnerable in small areas due to their size. Then finally there is the witch. The witch is easily avoided due to her cry and passive nature, however if you attack or hang around too long she will attack. Incredibly fast and small in stature makes her a tough foe not to mention her 1 hit down making her lethal in any circumstance.
There are 6 missions each taking between 30 minutes and an hour depending on how quickly you can shoot zombies. All have a fairly similar goal, get to the safe houses then get on the form of transport to safety only to find that the form of transport has been attacked by the time the next mission starts. The layout is very repetitive and so are the colours, grey black and dark green. Not to mention the Source engine showing some serious age making L4D one of Valve's ugliest games and probably one of the shortest. However all the missions can be played co-operatively and there is a survival mode and online multiplayer.
In survival you are given a timer which counts how long you can last against a never ending stream of zombies and specials. You’re lucky to survive past 5 minutes due to the intensity of it but it is extremely fun in co-op and infinitely replayable.
Multiplayer is the campaign missions but with 2 teams. The 4 survivors played by 4 people in the lobby and infected of whom are the rest of the lobby and AI. If any survivors complete the mission the survivor team wins but if they all die infected wins. This is insanely fun but also frustrating and fairly laggy depending on whether it’s a custom server or not.
Overall Left 4 Dead is a great game but short and aimed at people who like co-op games. If you’re a soloist I wouldn’t advise the game but it’s worth a look if you can find it cheap. Don’t expect much of a story but expect fast and frantic gameplay as you defend you and your buddies from the mass infection.
Left 4 Dead – 8/10
+Co-Op
+Multiplayer
+Gameplay
-Anything Else
